"How come you focused on Jeanette?" I said. "She's the one with the husband," Sterling said. "I mean, the other three are currently single, I believe."
He had described them originally, I thought, as the wives of rich husbands. I filed that for future consideration.
"These bad buys actually rough you up?" Sterling said.
"No."
"But they threatened to."
"Yes."
"And they didn't say who they were, ah, representing?"
"No."
"It's got to be Ronan."
"We'll see," I said. Sterling glanced over at Hawk across the street.
"Why doesn't he join us?" Sterling said.
"I thought you might be more at ease talking alone."
"You're a considerate pilgrim, aren't you."
"Yeah, you want to meet him?"
"Love to."
I gestured to Hawk to join us, and he walked across the street. Hawk always walked in a straight line from where he was to where he was going, and people always got out of his way. He pulled out a chair from another table, turned it
around, and sat. He looked at me and shook his head once. No one was following Sterling. I introduced them.
"Good to see ya," Sterling said. "Didn't want you getting lonely over there by yourself."
Hawk looked at Sterling without expression, then looked at me.
"Lonely," he said.
"Want a libation?" Sterling said.
"Champagne be nice."
Sterling gestured at the waiter and ordered. The waiter brought Sterling another Chartreuse, me another beer, and Hawk a bottle of Perrier Jouet in an ice bucket. He poured Hawk a glass and left the bucket handy.
"Seen any bad guys sneaking around Newbury Street?"
I didn't smile, but I wanted to. Hawk was as close to conflicted as he could get. He liked Susan nearly as much as I did, and he knew we were doing this for her and he was determined to be pleasant.
"Just him," Hawk said, pointing at me with his chin.
"He a bad guy?"
"Depends," Hawk said, "if he on your side or not."
"But he's pretty dangerous?"
Hawk smiled. It was an expression of real pleasure. He did his upper class WASP accent where he sounds a lot like James Mason.
"Brad, my man," Hawk said, "you simply have no idea."
"When I was playing football," Sterling said, and I watched Hawk's face go blank again as his attention closed down, "we had some pretty good battles"
Hawk finished his champagne, pulled the bottle from the ice bucket, poured another glass, and drank most of it in a swallow.
chapter thirteen
HAWK'S CURRENT GIRLFRIEND had a town house in the South End, off Clarendon Street close to the Ballet. Susan and Hawk and I were there with her, and maybe fifty of her closest friends, milling about in too little space. The talk was mostly medical, because Andrea was a cardiologist and most of her friends were doctors.
"It's a natural fit," I said to Hawk. "They need patients, you supply them."
"She love me 'cause ah is sensitive," Hawk said.
"Of course she does," Susan said. "Plus your wonderful Amos and Andy accent."
"You'd prefer me to sound like an upward mobile WASP," Hawk said, sounding remarkably like an upward mobile WASP
"I love you just the way you are," Susan said.
"Anyone would," Hawk said.
Andrea came over in a little red satin dress, carrying a glass of white wine.
"You wear that outfit to work," I said, "you may cause more heart attacks than you prevent."
"Is that a sexist remark?" Andrea said.
"Probably," I said.
"And God bless it," she said. "Hawk, will you please come over here and meet my department head?"
"Impress him," I said to Hawk. "Go with the upward mobile WASP accent."
Andrea stuck her tongue out at me and took Hawk's arm as they walked into the next room.
Susan and I hunkered down in our corner of the party and watched.
"Speaking," Susan said, "of sexism. You haven't told me how things are going with Brad."
"I didn't know that you wanted me to," I said.
"I'm interested, of course."
"Okay. It's kind of a hard one to get hold of. I mean, the charge has been made, apparently the lawsuit is moving forward, but I can't get anybody to tell me what happened, exactly."
"What did you think of Brad?"
"Well, you were right, I kind of like him, but he's either deliberately evasive, or so unfocused that he can't track an idea."
"Like how?"
"I can't get a real sense of whether he harassed these women or not. He's so out of touch with the current standards of male-female propriety that he could have sinned without realizing it."
"What does his lawyer say."
"He hasn't got one."
"Isn't that a mistake, to be faced with a lawsuit and have no lawyer?"
"Certainly. But he says he doesn't want to waste money on a lawyer for a case that isn't going anywhere."
"But how can he be sure?"
"I don't know. He seems entirely unfazed by the whole deal, which seems at odds with the way he presented his situation to you."
"Are you saying I misunderstood?"
"No."
"Because I didn't," she said. "He came to me and said he was desperate. That he had no money. That even if he won, the case would destitute him."
"He says that is not the situation. He says he's doing fine."